Top Gear magazine case study By Haris Mumtaz

Introduction The magazine I will be analysing is the June issue of top gear magazine Published by the BBC It is the UK’s number one automotive magazine It release a new issue every month It started on October of 1993 It is based on the popular automotive TV program also called “Top Gear” An early issue of the magazine

Top gear is a magazine made for entertainment and automotive news Genre Top gear is a magazine made for entertainment and automotive news Top Gear is a monthly magazine that is an automotive focused magazine. It is a magazine designed to inform car enthuses about the latest car reviews, news and has the most talked about cars featured in it. it is A4 sized and can be bought from shops, have a subscription or a digital copy.

The main colours that are used are white, grey and blue House style In the magazine we see different style in each page however most pages have the same formula. The main colours that are used are white, grey and blue The language used is a mix between formal and informal. It uses very informative but uses a lot of swearing and a lot of humour at the same time. This creates a good balance between the two One of the styles found in the magazine is a double page review. It has multiple images of the exterior and interior of the cars with pictures of the cars unique features. This is accompanied by text along the bottom on either one page or along the bottom and the right side of the page. Another style that is used in the magazine is a review page. It’s a double spread with one large image of the car across both pages . On the image there is a quote from the article on the page. There is text either on the side or in the coroner of the page which is laid on top of the image

Target Readership 134k abc circulation 14k digital downloads 1.5m nrs readership 43k subscribes 9.2m world wide readers Gender: Mainly men. Age: young/middle aged. Class:  working/middle class. Being the worlds number one automotive magazine, top gear has a total of 9.2 million readers across the globe. With about 134,000 ABC1 readers it has a very large amount of wealthy readers, which means they can advertise expensive items such as watches. Their main readers are aged from as young 15 all the way up to 45 with the average reader being 38 years old. 1.3 million of the readers have a family of 4 or more. 63% of their UK readers are ABC1 men and 24% of their UK audience is AB men. 84% of all readers are men which makes a male oriented magazine.

Typical audience profile Name: Albert Johnson Age: 27 Occupation: solicitor Hobbies: he has 2 cars, one for everyday commuting and one to drive on the weekend. He likes going gym, playing football once a week with friends. He likes going cinema and loves hip hop and house music Disposable income: £200 a month Favourite car Brands: Nissan, Mercedes Benz, Ford Favourite brands: Hugo Boss, Nike, costa, Tag Heuer, Casio, pioneer, Bose, Samsung

Front Cover/Page The Masthead is written in white and is placed the top of the page but is in the background. The main focus of the front page is the cars because that is the main agenda of the magazine is cars. The colours of the masthead changes with the colour of the image of the cover. The word ‘Top gear’ is usually written in contrasting colours to the image of the cover to make it stand out and to make it more legible. It uses the most talked about cars on the front cover, this is done because it grabs the audiences attention and makes them think about what the magazine has to say about the cars One of the cover lines says “driven: the most wanted supercars of 2017” this makes it very desirable to read because this is major new for car enthusiast The largest text on the front cover says “wild ones” this referring to the Ford GT and the McLaren720s which are said to be among the fastest super cars of year which makes it a hot topic, as a result it attracts many readers Right at the top of the magazine it says “free 32-page ev mad inside” this lets everyone know that there is a free magazine within the magazine

Content Being a car magazine it very automotive focused Some of the content included in the magazine is in depth car reviews on the latest and most talked about sports and super cars for example There is a section for in depth car reviews for example the E63 S review on page 60. this is called the “Drives” which is scattered throughout the magazine In my issue of the magazine there is an EV(Electric vehicle) section for people who have interest in it or for people who are in the market for an EV which is separate from the rest of the magazine but can be found in the middle of the magazine They have another section for all the best models of each car brand, what models and the different versions of the model and which one to get this section is called the garage which found on page 131 They have a section for reviews of everyday and affordable cars for the reader who are in the market for a new car but cannot afford expensive sports cars this is part of the intake section which is scattered across the magazine.

Article analysis This article is part of the Ford GT review. This is a very simple layout and the main focus of the article is the car. It has a quote from the review to make the reader more intrigued about the article. The text is on the upper section of the page and the part of the image that is not linked to the car. It uses very fine but easy to read text, which is very easy to read against the colour of the background. The text is in a blocks and the article is broken it to 2 paragraphs that are similar sizes to make fit in the upper portion of the page with overlapping the image of the car, which the main focus of the page. Next to the car there is a fact about the wing called “wing thing” The image of the car is used to attract the readers attention and is the main focus of the page. The image is their to grab the readers attention so that they can read the article about the car. The language that is used in the text is a balance between formal and informal. The formal language is used to describe some of the aspects of the car for example “the seats, which have better lateral support than I expected” where as some parts are more about the emotion for example “it made me want to whoop and sing”

Advertisement About 35% of the content in the magazine is adverts. Majority of the adverts are for new cars and don’t really look like adverts because it fits in with the rest of the magazines content and is often mistaken for content. The reason why there is are so many car adverts is because that 1.7 million readers are looking to get a car in the next 2 years. Having over half of the readers being ABC1 men the adverts are very male orientated and slightly expensive and with 44% of all the male readers are likely to spend over £200 on watches there are quite a few watch adverts in the magazine through out all their issues. The advert that analysing is a watch advert for Bulova. They are a high-end watchmaker. Most of there watches are priced at around £200 which is perfect for top gears target audience The advert is not advertising a specific watch but rather an advert for the company. The simplistic of the advert makes it look like a high end watch and very refined